The Library

So, despite the possibility of seeming pretentious (which I am), I figured I'd show you what my real job has been down here in Ecuador...reading. I figured maybe some of you would be remotely interested in what kinds of junk has been passing through my brain in the last 8 months. Fiction, Non-fiction, Humanist, Post-modern, Christian, dog training, and more. My mindset while I'm here is to read as much as I can and to read stuff I wouldn't normally read. So, in other words, don't judge me just because you might not have the taste to read some of the stuff I've read...Well, here's the list, if you're curious if I liked or hated a particular book, just drop me a comment or an email.

About A Boy, Nick Hornby
Blindness, José Saramago
Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller
Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut
Cesar's Way, Cesar Millan
Click for Joy! (Clicker Training for Dogs), Melissa C. Alexander
Death in the Afternoon, Ernest Hemingway
El Coronel No Tiene Quien Le Escriba, Gabriel García Marquez
End of the Spear, Steve Saint
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson
Galapagos, Kurt Vonnegut
How Soccer Explains the World, Franklin Foer
La Aventura del Tocador de Señoras, Eduardo Mendoza
Marley & Me, John Grogan
Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis
More Than a Carpenter, Josh McDowell
Passion and Purity, Elizabeth Elliot
Running With The Bulls: My Years With The Hemingways, Valerie Hemingway
Seeing, José Saramago
Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
The Best American Travel Writing, 2000, Bill Bryson
The Bold Experiment: JFK's Peace Corps, Gerard T. Rice
The Inferno of Dante, Dante
The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades, Robert Spencer
The Savage, My Kinsman, Elizabeth Elliot
The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis
The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut
The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction, Helen Graham
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
The Villagers (Huasipungo), Jorge Icaza

Carnaval 2007

So, here in Ecuador, there are a lot of Catholic people. Ergo, lots of quasi-religious festivals. One of the biggest is Carnaval, which is the same concept as Mardi Gras. It's the celebration leading up until Ash Wednesday, which is the beginning of 40-day Lent, which is a period of supposed fasting and prayer leading up until Holy Week and Easter. Anyways, the long and the short of it are that in my town every year there is a big party with people coming from all over the country and even from other countries. These are pictures taken in Licto, but don't be confused, the streets fill up just once a year and then are empty the rest of the year. The jist is that for three days, even wanders around the streets, soaks whoever they can with water, foam, flour, or whatever is available...even paint. Then, in the evenings, everyone drinks and dances 'til the wee hours. For example, my bedtime for the four nights of Carnaval were 4:30 AM, 4:30 AM, 9 AM, and 3:30 AM. Considering everyone in Licto tends to go to bed around 8 PM, that's a pretty big deal. Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as we all enjoyed the partying.

A parade known as a comparsa goes up my street on the way to the house where that particular party was to take place, which happened to be the house across the street from my that no one lives in for 364 days out of the year.

People dancing in the street in front my house.

People getting sprayed with carioca foam by some kind of crazy wolf-like character.

View from the balcony where one of the parties was.

Me, on a rock down at the river (I took a couple of out-of-towners to the Rio Chambo, one of Licto's nicest 'tourist' attractions).

Me on another rock down by the river. This one I had to jump to.

Dancing and drinking with the neighbors up the street.

The neighbors decided to put the traditional furry chaps, poncho and hat on me and make me dance...results of the experiment are witnessed in the photo.

So, apparently, 20-something males are the same in every country of the world. This guy passed out in my house while some of my friends were over and we put hout sauce on his lips, permanent marker on his cheeks and a cigarrette in his ear (not pictured).

Some of the friends that came over to my house. We closed up shop around 9 AM.

Me, showing off some of my middle-of-the night cooking. We ended up eating like kings because I was in the mood to cook. We ate rice with pork chops, lots of popcorn, tacos, and a couple platters of scrambled eggs. My fridge was empty at the end of the night. Good times.

Well those are the hightlights from Carnaval 2007. For any of you hoping to see women on balcanies with beads around their necks...sorry, that's not how we roll down here in Ecuador.

Picture update

Well, I haven't had much time to update my blog with pictures in the last few weeks, but finally I've got a bit in the internet café in order to catch you all up on what my life's been looking like lately.

We'll start with a few pictures from our Peace Corps Reconnect conference a couple weeks ago in the jungle (sadly it rained the whole week):

The counterparts of a couple volunteer friends of mine dressing up like them and making fun of them.

Paul, playing an original song, his first in Spanish, about how he hates the subjunctive verb tense in Spanish.

Dara and David doing a nice little Dirty Dancing montage dance scene, with the gender reversed.

Ashley reads her homage to one of our fallen comrades in a skit that recounted the loss of all the volunteers we've lost since we got in country (we've went from 50 to 42 in 7 months).

Some people from the agency I work with and some of the people in the community they work in.

Killu, writhing on the bed for no good reason.

La Dolorosa, the plaza where I catch the bus to Licto from Riobamba.

Killu, wearing a T-shirt. Silly dog.

Some of my kids from my youth group, hanging out at the school.

A view of Chimborazo from Riobamba on a clear day. Need I remind you that Chimborazo is the farthest point from the center of the earth (because of the bulge of the earth at the equator).

Killu, sleeping in my bed.

Another picture of the kids in my Licto youth group.

Killu, yawning as I awake him from his slumber.

So, there's a brief highlight reel of my life in the past month.
Also, in news, my brother is getting married in April in Costa Rica and I'm going to go (obviously). Not only that, I'm going a week early to travel around and see the country. The wedding is on the Pacific Coast, so I'm hoping maybe to hit both oceans in a period of a week...If you know anyone living in Costa Rica, drop me their email address, so I can find some people to meet up with in my week of traveling. Well, that's all for now...this week I've got a beekeeping conference to attend here in Riobamba and nearby Chambo, so I'll be in town but I don't know if I'll have time to mess around on email...